This is the moment Jeremy Corbyn offered his “congratulations” to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro who was last night branded a “dictator” by the international community. Corbyn appeared as a special guest on Maduro’s personal weekly propaganda show En Contacto con Maduro (In Contact With Maduro), broadcast on state televeision and radio throughout Venezuela. Introduced by Maduro as a “friend of Venezuela”, Corbyn addresses his host as “Mr President” during a 2014 discussion about Tony Benn. Maduro replied: “Thank you Jeremy, for your call and your greetings”…

Last night Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Maduro is behaving “like a dictator of an evil regime”. As the US government issued further sanctions, its treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said Maduro is a “dictator who disregards the will of the Venezuelan people.” Pressure is mounting on Corbyn to distance himself from the Venezuelan government. Opposition leaders Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma were arrested by the armed forces in midnight operations condemned as “deeply concerning” by the UN’s human rights chief. The death toll in anti-government protests has soared to more than 120. Labour MPs are calling on Jez to publicly denounce the regime…

Corbyn has also featured on pan-South-American network TeleSur, which is funded by the Venezeuelan government. He gave an exclusive interview to the station in 2015. Last year the Argentine government pulled all co-operation with TeleSur, saying it had “no pluralism“. The Maduro regime often interrupts television channels to deliver mandatory joint broadcasts known as ‘cadenas’. Last year press freedom monitors at Freedom House named En Contacto con Maduro in a damning report which found: “freedom of expression and information has progressively declined under the governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro.” Corbyn’s chumminess with Maduro won’t be so easily censored…

Quote of the Day

Former public schoolboy Chuka Umunna told the ‘Exit From Brexit Dinner’…

“Remainians, Remoaners, I don’t care what the label is, I’m proud. It’s fashionable to label everyone in this room as the liberal metropolitan elite . . . This caricature is promoted by a bunch of former public schoolboys!”